Web Tutorial
To have your own home page on the World Wide Web you need
to have an account on a computer that runs web server software.
Web server software receives requests for web pages from the
Internet, retrieves the requested pages from a hard disk, and
sends the pages back over the web to the requesting browser.
If you are a student, staff, or faculty member at Illinois State
University and have an Email account, you also have access to
a web server.
To set up your own home
page you must create the page as a computer file and store it
on a web server's hard disk. The page must be composed using
special codes known as HTML, i.e. HyperText Markup
Language.
The following is a summary
of the process for creating a web page.
- Create the text of the web page in HTML using a text editor.
- Store the page on your hard drive as a text file with the
extension .htm. If this is a Home Page name it welcome.htm.
- View the page from your browser - In Netscape select File
and then Open Page.
- Edit the page using the text editor, review it again with
your browser, edit again, etc.
- Define any directories you will need on the web server.
- Upload the finished page to the web server along with any
images your page uses.
- Check and Validate your web page [Link
1] [Link 2]
DEFINITIONS
BROWSER - see web browser.
HOME PAGE - a web page that is intended to be the entry
point for people viewing your web pages. Commonly named welcome.htm.
HTML - HyperText Markup Language, special codes added
to a text file so that it can be viewed by a web browser.
HTML DOCUMENT or HTML FILE - a web page.
TEXT EDITOR - a computer program that facilitates the
creation and editing of a text file.
VIEWING RIGHTS - your files and directories on a server
may be private, i.e. they can be viewed and altered only by
you. The rights must be set to allow others to view your
pages but not alter them. These rights are set for you on the
ISU Web server.
WEB BROWSER - a computer program that retrieves and displays
web pages.
WEB MASTER - the person responsible for maintaining and
administering a web server or web pages.
WEB PAGE - a text file containing HTML and available
through a web server.
WEB SERVER - a computer running web server software.
WEB SERVER SOFTWARE - software that receives requests
for web pages from the Internet, retrieves the requested pages
from a hard disk, and sends the pages back over the web to the
requesting browser.
This tutorial was developed
primarily for Illinois State University faculty, staff and students.
If you are associated with the university you will need an e-mail
account. If you don't have an account, you can get one at the
Illinois State University Home Page ( Faculty,
Staff, and Students ONLY).
If you have the necessary
accounts then you are ready to proceed.
If you are not associated
with Illinois State University, but you have access to a web
server at school or work, contact your webmaster
(the individual who is responsible for the web server) to see
how you can get your files on the Web.
If you do not have access
to a server at work or school, check to see if your community
operates a FreeNet, a community-based network that
provides free access to the Internet. Lacking a FreeNet, you
will have to contact a local or national Internet service provider
(ISP) that will provide you access to the Internet and space
on a hard disk for you to store your web pages (for a fee, of
course). America on Line,
Earthlink, and Microsoft
are three of several national Internet service providers.
Your Internet service
provider will be able to provide instructions and assistance
for putting your web pages on the Internet.
What Isn't Covered in This Tutorial
This tutorial assumes that you:
- know how to use a text editor
- have a general understanding of how web servers and client
browsers work
- have access to a web server (not needed if you only want
to produce HTML documents for personal use in local-viewing
mode)
- know how to use Netscape Navigator or some other web browser
(Good assumption since your are reading this)
Tutorial Outline
From here, I suggest you go to the next lesson to learn about
HTML. You can do this by clicking on Next
Page.
|
